


You're Too Kind

by Poose



Series: The Reynolds Affair [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Abuse, Adultery, Affairs, Apparently I Love Pain, Bad Decisions, Cheating, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Everything Hurts, F/M, I'm so sorry, Married Characters, Parenthood, Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 09:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6698431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poose/pseuds/Poose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fluffy cat has dipped a paw into this pretty glass vase; it is teetering, but it has not yet toppled. In other words, shit's about to hit the fan.</p><p>We reiterate: James Reynolds is an abusive shit, Maria is not blameless, Alexander is increasingly awful. Eliza will have her turn under the lens and I guarantee that won't be pretty either.</p><p>(Content warnings for mentions of abuse, suicide, and adultery.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Too Kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wreathed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/gifts).



She was beautiful when she came over yesterday afternoon, so otherworldly beautiful in the dress he bought her, beautiful out of it, and she’s particularly beautiful in his bed, wearing only a white tank top and her tiny pink underwear. He slides his hand up and down, caressing the downy curve of her shoulder. She snuggles back into the pillow and blinks up at him. He likes her so much. He wishes he could keep her.

“Good morning,” he says, and smiles down at her sleepy face.

“Hey,” she answers. He adjusts the sheets so that her legs are covered. “You cold?”

“I’m okay. I like your air conditioning.”

“Sleep all right?”

She yawns like a kitten, covers her mouth on instinct. “Yeah, really good. You?”

The fine hairs on her skin catch the morning light. Her arms are so soft. “Good,” he tells her. “But you are one hell of a blanket hog.”

Maria laughs and pushes a hand playfully to his chest. He catches her wrist in his hand and she flinches for a second, and then relaxes when he lifts it to his mouth, lays lingering kisses across her palm.

“What time is it?” She looks around for the clock.

“It’s early,” Alex says, “Eight? Nine? Something like that.” He holds his hand up to hers and marvels at how short her fingers are in comparison to his. She sleeps with her wedding ring on. He takes his off; can’t stand to have anything against his skin if he can help it. Of course that means he’s always losing it. Six years in and he’s on band number two already.

“Ugh,” Maria scowls for a second. “I have one hour, okay?”

“Sure,” he says, and tugs her on top of him. “One hour. Got it.”

 

###

 

At 10:47 they’re standing in his kitchen, back where this all began.

He’s made them coffee. They’re drinking it from juice glasses because all the mugs are dirty in the sink. There’s something wrong with the dishwasher, like it’s not draining right. He’ll call maintenance and leave a message. With the holiday, Tuesday’s probably the soonest they’ll get to it. “You work this week?”

“Nights again,” Maria says, checking to make sure she has everything she brought with her. “And you. I mean, now that you’re done with the book?”

“Time to think about the next one, I guess.”

“Can’t you take a break?” she asks.

Alex inhales sharply. “I’m really useless unless I’m occupied,” he tells her. “I need a project or else I get twitchy.”

She embraces him, then, flings her lovely arms around his neck. “Bye,” she says, her breath warm against his ear. “Thank you, this was. It's been — it’s been nice.”

“Can I call you?” he asks, stroking her forearms with the backs of his hands. She says, “No phone, you know that.”

He misses her already. “I’ll text.”

“Yeah,” she says, and slowly pulls herself out of his arms.

“We can get coffee,” he tells her, which is honestly never going to happen.

Maria’s eyes are watery when she repeats herself. “Bye, you.”

“Bye, yourself,” he says, and the door shuts and she’s gone. Vanished from his life.

When he goes back into the bedroom — they’re not going to be back until tomorrow, his project’s finished, he has the day blissfully to himself — to head back to sleep, he sees that she’s left the dress he bought her folded into a neat square on top of the bed, which she’s also thoughtfully made. He touches the fabric wistfully, remembering the way it clung to her thighs when they were walking to dinner, and then goes to put it, and the jean jacket, back, buries it deep in the bottom of a banker’s box in the hallway closet. He stuffs a bunch of files on top to hide it.

The deadbolt turns a few hours later, but it is only when he hears his name in that musical voice — “Alexander?” the particular trill up in the middle syllable that only she has — that he sits bolt upright in the bed.

“Alexander?” Eliza calls from the front room. “Are you home?” Her keys jangle in the bowl. 

“Shit.” He looks around the room frantically to make sure there’s no visible trace of her. What the fuck is she doing home a whole day early? She definitely said Tuesday, that they’d all be back on Tuesday.

“Hey!” he shouts, as he scrambles to shove the vibrator back in the drawer under the bed, to find and stash the fucking lube — Jesus, where the fuck is it? — to fluff out the second pillow and smooth out the blankets, as if the imprint of her still lingers even now, and he could simply wipe it away with his hand. “Is it just you? I thought everyone was coming back tomorrow?”

She comes into the bedroom just as he’s kicking the drawer shut and standing up to greet her. He's winded from the exertion. 

“Angie offered to drive the kids back,” she says, and tosses her leather weekender bag on the bed, “so we could have some time alone.”

“Wow, did they finally buy carseats?” he asks, to which she nods. “That was nice of them.”

“They’re talking again about in vitro,” she says. “Joanne says it can be a practice run, watching the baby.”

Alex shudders. “Oof.”

Eliza laughs then, a melodic sound that swells his heart. “You’re so mean.”

He grins his charming lopsided grin. “S’why you married me, isn’t it?"

“That,” she says, coming closer so that the smell of her freesia perfume floods his nostrils, as familiar as if she’d never been gone, “and your devastating intellect.”

“You’re home,” he says with a quaver in his voice.

“Yes,” she smiles, and he smiles back. “I missed you,” he says, and kisses her gently on the mouth.

 

####

  
They have one night, one perfect night without the kids. Eliza ignores the mess he’s left behind these past few months, only suggests that he see if Marta can come in the morning before Angelica and Joanne arrive. She orders them delivery from their Thai place, hers spicy, his less so, while he takes a scalding hot shower, soaps his hair, scrubs his dick clean, and washes all traces of her away down the drain.

 

####

 

He doesn’t want her, doesn’t want her, doesn’t want her. For a day, two days; a cruel week that becomes two, then a month, and he doesn’t want her for three months, for four, for five.

Doesn’t want her in the hotel where they meet at odd hours, and where he eats her out in the shower, the sluice of water cascading over her beautiful body, running into his mouth, flooding his nose like he’s drowning in it. He fucks her over the bathroom sink, on the floor, behind the couch, in the bed.

He doesn’t want her when he texts on weeknights and she says she’s working but he shows up right before her breaks and fingers her in the supply closet.

He definitely doesn’t want her when Eliza’s younger sister Peggy comes over so they can have a girls’ night in. They go to a site-specific wordless adaptation of Macbeth set in the thirties, and a silent player tucks a flower behind her ear, and the whole night reeks of sex. They end up in an alley a few steps away from the venue, a frenzy descending over them both. She rubs off against his palm and the smell of her seems to linger underneath his fingernails for days no matter how much he scrubs them.

He doesn’t want her at her place, at his place, at a party downtown, at the beer garden in Astoria, once in the back of an Uber black that had a partition for privacy, where she sucked his dick like a demon and then spit his own come back into his mouth and growled at him.

He doesn’t want her when they meet in the park, the apple blossoms dropping from the trees in a slimy pile, the air growing thick with the promise of another New York summer. Her little dog is there with her, and she’s taken up smoking again, and her dark polish is chipped, the nails all bitten down past her fingertips, and when he goes to put a hand on her thigh he notices the bruises that ring her wrist and then, fuck, _then_ he wants her.

“Maria,” he says, and gestures at her wrist. She folds her arms in front of her chest but makes no effort to hide them. “You have to get away from him.”

“And go where?” she demands. She opens her purse with shaking hands. Alex lights her cigarette for her, and then takes one for himself. Eliza’s on his case to quit for good. It’s a hell of a habit to give up, especially when it keeps him off the rest of his bad habits. 

He thinks on it, tries to find a solution. “You have a sister, don’t you?”

“California,” Maria shakes her head. “Try again.”

“Your mother?”

She answers quickly. “My stepfather’s a shit. That’s not even on the table.”

He sighs heavily. It’s a problem but he can solve it. There’s got to be a way out that he can find. “Look, I can get you a sublet, a room. Give me a couple of days. Let me put out feelers.”

Maria glares at him. She sounds displeased when she says, “I can take care of myself, Alex.”

“Jesus, don’t be so touchy,” he snaps, and sits back against the park bench. He spreads his legs and rubs his stomach. “I’m only trying to help.”

“‘Course you are.” She takes a long drag, coughs. “Always trying to help. You’re good at that, right?”

His chest constricts like she’s punched him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

The dog whimpers at her feet, then lets out a strangled growl. It pulls on the leash and she reins it in. She leans over to pet it. “Hush, baby,” she says, as it bristles against the concrete, “you’re good.”

They’re silent long enough for them both to extinguish, light, and smoke another cigarette. She rakes her fingers through her hair and tousles it. The movement is a nervous tic but it still gets him hot for her.

“Look,” he apologizes at last, “I’m sorry, that was shitty. But I know some lawyers, my sist—” but then he breaks off. Angie Schuyler already thinks he’s a piece of shit, he can’t very well go asking her to look after his — well, after _her_.

“Aaron Burr,” he blurts out, like the name means anything to her. “He works in town, has a family law practice. I’ll give you his contact info. I can email it to you.”

“How,” she says very slowly, like he’s stupid, which he unequivocally isn't, “am I supposed to pay for a lawyer?”

“New York’s a no-fault state,” he informs her, his mind already whirling ahead. “Maybe he won’t contest it? If that’s the case I think you can skip mediation. I’d have to look it up.”

“It’s an adultery state too,” she says. She scratches her bare knee. “That I did look up.”

“Aaron will help you.” He’s certain of it. There’s got to be a favor he can call in. “And if he can’t he’ll definitely know someone who will. Can, I mean.”

The dog growls at a passing black squirrel. They lock eyes across the path. The dog barks, the squirrel screeches, and runs off with a piece of a pretzel that it's liberated from an overflowing green trash can.

“I don’t have the money,” she tells him. “Even no-fault, which he won’t ever go for.”

“What if I gave it to you?” he tries, already wondering how many freelance pieces George would be willing to pay him under the table for.

She scoffs at the suggestion. “Good luck hiding that.”

“Or,” he starts, and it’s a half-baked idea, but he has to get her out of there somehow. “Or, look, we’re talking about getting live-in help.”

Her forehead furrows. The line is etched more deeply there than it was a year ago. He’d still like to kiss it. “Help,” she repeats, slowly. “We.”

“The gal we have now, Marta, she’s great,” he says, “but, well, with a baby on the way it’s not enough. She’s only around in the afternoons, and she’s talking about retiring back to Poland pretty soon. We’re gonna need someone full time eventually.”

“Wait.” She stops him with a glare. “You’re having another kid?”

“I know,” he answers with a bashful grin. Eliza’s in her first trimester; they haven’t told anyone except family yet. Everything seems good so far. He’s always terrified when she’s pregnant, worries about how she works too hard, that she isn’t getting enough folic acid or sleep or iron. Eliza loves being pregnant: how her skin glows, and her breasts plump up, and she’s always guaranteed a seat on the train. “It’s awful for the planet. Zero population growth is what we’re all supposed to do, but she has a huge family of her own, so, now we do too. I don’t? Whatever, we’re gonna have to get a bigger place. Four kids in a two-bedroom? Even with bunk beds it’s gonna be tight. She wants to move out of the city. Bronxville, maybe. Or Westchester, of all fucking places. I will literally kill myself if I have to move to fucking _Westchester_. Sorry, I shouldn’t joke about that. My uncle killed himself. Fuck, Alex, ramble much?”

“You’re moving away?” She sounds distant. “Soon?” The dog sees a pigeon, whines in the direction of a large cottonwood tree.

“Not if I can help it,” he says, and takes her hand. This time there’s no flinch. He rubs his thumb over her palm. “But if we have to? She’s come around to the idea of an _au pair_. The last one didn’t work out, but that was a while ago. If we didn’t have to deal with all the paperwork, and the placement agency, and all the fees—” He’s thinking out loud now. “You’d need a backstory, obviously, but between the two of us we can come up with one. George’s stepson is in grad school, I think he’s about your age? There might be something there to mine. We can figure it out later.”

She turns to face him. He’s unable to place the expression on her face because it’s not one he’s ever seen before. Her eyes are narrowed and her nostrils are flared out. It’s not a pretty look on her and he hopes she stops doing it soon. “You want me to come live with you?”

“Well, yes?” he says, because it’s not the greatest idea, but it’s better than anything she’s come up with yet, which is nothing. “Think about it? You wouldn’t have to pay rent, and you’d get paid okay. It’s not great, but my wife just got promoted, we can swing a salary of some kind. It would get you out of his house. That’s the main thing.”

“It’s my house, too,” says Maria, coldly.

“Sure,” he says, “but you’re only renting. You can leave whenever you want to." God, they’re gonna have to deal with brokers again. Maybe they can rent it out through a management company. Maybe she could rent it? No, too complicated. 

She interrupts his scheming to say, “But my name’s on the lease.”

“Aaron can get you out of it,” he reassures her. “I don’t think that will actually be the issue. Look, they can’t make you stay there with him.”

“I have a job,” she tells him. “I went to school to get my degree so I could work, not be your glorified babysitter. Or your kids’.”

“Hey,” he soothes, “hey. Once it’s all settled you can go back to work, that’s gonna happen. This is just a short-term solution.” He kisses her cheek, wholly convinced that she’s on board with the plan. “This makes perfect sense, honestly. You save your money, we can see one another all the time. Everybody wins. Of course we have to be careful, but, we’re already good at being careful.”

She stands up abruptly and dusts off her shorts, another tic that draws his interest. Her ass is so fine. “You have kids,” she informs him, her luscious mouth set in a hard and angry line. “And a wife. A _pregnant_ wife. Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you?” The leash rattles in her hand and the dog huffs at him now, blowing out a smelly gust of breath the direction of his shins.

“Maria,” he pleads, from his seated position. “Baby. Don’t get all bent out of shape. I’m only trying to help.”

“I’m not your fucking whore, Alex,” she spits, over her shoulder. “Go fuck yourself.” Without another word she turns on her heel and walks away, the leash swinging in her hand. The dog trots after her obediently. 

He leaves the bench and walks to the drugstore, where he buys a pack of his own and stands on the street corner, leaning against a utility box while he smokes. His mouth tastes of ashes. 


End file.
